The Mini Blogger ...

So much for being the lone blogger in the house, as of today my kid has decided to start helping :-).

The first two blogs ...

How do you feel when you write in english?

When I write in English I feel a lot of wonderful but very awkward emotions. The first thing I feel is a bit of accomplishment because I spent a whole year learning it, and I have to admit it wasn't easy. I also feel really good thinking that my parents would be very proud if they saw me writing in English, like their kid just grew up. But then I feel like if I were leaving something behind, my whole childhood, my parents, my traditions, my hometown, even myself. But then just before I fall apart I can somehow look up and I see myself in the future, with a good job and a big happy family, and all thanks to my english. But suddenly I come back to me and I realize that I'm just writing in English. What a big deal.

My trip to Las Copas

Right now is 9:27 pm, and today is Sunday. A few hours ago I was waking up (at 7:00 a.m.) and getting ready to make an awesome trip, a trip that only a few have been able to do.

Around 7:45 a.m. me and my dad were heading to the funeral chapels Las Misiones (Don’t worry, no one died, that is our meeting spot because the brothers that own it were also going to the trip) and as usual, nobody was there. By 8:15 a.m. Enrique and Mauricio appeared but we were still waiting for Mike and his son & crew. My dad, Enrique and Mauricio are “Jeeperos”, and all it means is that they ride in Jeeps that are modified to be able to go off-road, but not only off-road, extreme 4x4. But Mike is another different story. Mike and my dad are really good friends, but Mike rides ATVs, so my dad invited Mike and his son & crew to our trip, so they could ride the sand dunes in Las Copas.

By 8:30 a.m. everyone was ready and we started our journey. We stopped for Gas and batteries for our walkie-talkies while Mauricio was buying his beer. We took the highway to Culiacán and rode for about 20~30 minutes, which was the most boring part of the trip. We rode until we reached the road to El Cerro Cabezón (In Spanish “cerro” is a mountain and “cabezon” means big headed, El Cerro Cabezon is a mountain with the shape of a big head) and we rode that way. But before that we stopped a little bit to turn on the 4x4 on the Jeeps and to get the ATVs down from the tow (ATVs are really fast, but not fast enough to ride on the highway).

We reached a small village called El Carrisito, (from what we had researched, the trail to Las Copas was closed by a gate with a lock) and in there we looked for the Comisario (like the village mayor, who was an Indian about 50 years old). My dad talked to him and told him that we were doing, who we were and where we were from, and he agreed to open the gate for us. (he explained that there was a gate because of hunters. There are lots of deer in that zone).
So basically, our journey has just started, the trail became really though and rocky. We rode that way for around one hour until we reached the most critical part of the journey. The reason that nobody goes to Las Copas in cars is because there is no trail beyond the part we were about to cross. Also, there are few times in the year when you can cross the valley that divides Las Copas from the rest. That valley is flooded with sea water so only during winter the sea levels are low enough to cross the valley, but still, it isn’t easy.

Before crossing it we did some math, we had from ~10:00 a.m. to ~4:00 p.m. to cross, get to Las Copas, enjoy it, take pictures and then come back, and if we took longer, the sea levels would rise again and we would have had to wait until the next day. But we didn’t think about it twice, we stepped on the gas pedal and cross the muddy valley. For us in the trucks was though but comfortable, but for those in the ATVs was way easier (since ATVs aren’t as heavy as trucks, they don’t sink that much) but they got covered in mud, and it was only the beginning.

After we crossed it, we rode for a while until we found a really cool cavern, we got inside (by foot) joked around and took pictures, that cavern was amazing. We took a 30 minutes break in there and then we resumed our trip. We rode for a while again until we finally got there. From the beach you could see El Maviri Beach and Topolobampo Port.

By then we were done with our goal, but we kept riding a little more until we got around the tip of Las Copas and we found something very interesting. We found a lake like thing behind the beach, and there were some fisherman in there. They were astonished to see us because it is the most uncommon thing to see in Las Copas, cars. But those were not common fisherman, they didn’t actually fish, what they did was grow oysters. They had an oyster farm, and I believe it’s the first one in the region. We talked to the fisherman there and they told us that every oyster was “planted”. The oysters are put in some bag-like containers and sunk in the water. Every “seed” is like a baby oyster produced in a laboratory in La Paz. Every million seeds costs $45’000.00 pesos, so it’s some serious business. From what we talked to the fisherman, we learned that every oyster takes around 8 months to grow up enough to be sold and eaten. Coincidentally, the boss in there was Beto’s uncle (Beto is an old friend of the Jeeperos, actually, he was the mechanic in the crew, but he moved out of town), so he led us try some off the bigger oysters. They were delicious.

On the way back two of the ATV’s tires flattened out and we had to fix them, then the gasoline container fell and spilled so we had to pray we didn’t run out of gas. Fortunately we managed to get to El Carrisito safely and from there we took the highway to Los Mochis. The trip is a one-of-a-lifetime. I would recommend anyone to take the journey.